The term ‘drag royalty’ gets bandied about a lot, particularly now that there have been seven All Stars seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race: a spinoff to the main American series that brings back the cream of the crop from the previous seasons to go head-to-head. But Shea – “Ms Coulee, if ya nasty” – is one of few heads on which a crown can comfortably rest. A rare three-timer on the TV franchise, with one season win to her name, Shea returned to Cardiff for the first time in five years on Monday as part of her European Lipstick Ball tour: a live performance of tracks from her first album 8, as well as ever-more fabulous wardrobe changes, tight choreography and exuberant stanning from a small but hungry crowd.
Supported by up-and-coming singer-songwriter Gess (a collaborator on 2020 single Collide), Shea’s arrival is proceeded by a remix of sassy club banger Cocky, from her first EP, which plays on a giant LED screen parked onstage, accompanied by a clock counting down from five minutes (a good four minutes too long, really, but a handy way to know when to have phones at the ready). Like a reverse Cinderella, at the stroke of zero the queen of the hour struts onto The Globe’s stage ready for the ball – in a blood-red orange number, asymmetrical zebra-striped bob and thick shades for a solo opener, before two dancers join her for the rest of the show.
Drag Race alumni have extremely hit-and-miss music careers. Some of it feels like content for content’s sake, feeding off the newfound TV fame before it fades and little more. Others, on the other hand, clearly have more of a passion and talent for it. As Shea demonstrates when providing backstory for some of her set in between songs (New Phone Who Dis is a sour clapback to a fellow contestant who slept with her boyfriend; Material is “more of a vibe” than something to be taken literally), she’s a proudly independent musician, as well as drag artist, who puts thought and effort into her material. And it shows: 8 is a well-produced album that gives you the full Shea Coulee package, glittery, uptempo electropop with bad bitch attitude.
If there’s something amiss tonight, however, it’s that Shea doesn’t seem able to fully let her hair down. Her connection with the audience shines through most when she’s telling anecdotes but the limited space on stage feels a bit constricting when she’s singing, her focus solely on the performance rather than keeping the energy up. Some cheeky interactions from her dancers, however, make up for this a bit. (Whoever put them in dayglo unitards with mesh underwear over the top either deserves a raise or a wake-up call, I can’t decide which.)
The Lipstick Ball comes at a time when Shea Coulee is on the cusp of household name status, thanks to an upcoming regular role in the Marvel series Ironheart. Here in Cardiff, the show feels like an intimate love-in with diehard fans, as well as a celebratory precursor to the next chapter in a dynamic and multi-faceted career.
Shea Coulee: The Lipstick Ball, The Globe, Cardiff, Mon 17 Apr
words HANNAH COLLINS
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